


blood brothers

by incogneat_oh



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Batdad, Gen, Humor, Slice of Life, batfamily, blood warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 08:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15792477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incogneat_oh/pseuds/incogneat_oh
Summary: “Don’t hit your brother,” he says, automatically. Absently.“Adopted,” they both say, simultaneously.Father links his fingers together in his lap, peers interestedly at the ceiling for a moment. “Yes,” he says, finally. “You are clearly very different.”





	blood brothers

\--

Damian is skulking upstairs in the Manor. He’s just eaten half his weight in leftovers from the refrigerator in the kitchen, because these days he’s always starving; it feels like he can’t get enough food in a day. Pennyworth has been feeding him enormous meals, packing his belt pockets with granola bars and other assorted snacks, has been greeting him home from patrol with grilled sandwiches and cocoa. But Damian’s still always hungry.

Grayson has offered the opinion that Damian is due for a growth spurt at any minute. He had explained that throughout his own childhood, an increase in appetite typically meant he’d shoot up a couple inches. Damian would like that.

He’d asked, trying to disguise the hopefulness in his voice, if being taller meant Grayson would no longer call him “lil D”. Grayson had just laughed, pulled him in against his warm side, and said that he would always be lil D, even when he’s taller than Grayson. That was his big brother prerogative, because they shared a first initial. Damian had shoved him away, but Grayson hadn’t minded. He’d just handed Damian another cinnamon bun and smoothed down his hair with a fond look. 

But today, Pennyworth isn’t even _home_ , and Lord knows the rest of them can’t be trusted with a stove, and so Damian had to eat the available food _cold_. Honestly.

He can feel himself scowling, habitually, his feet automatically beginning to stomp a little in line with his mood. 

And Damian is well on the way to shutting himself into his room, because he is getting to be in what Grayson calls ‘one of _those_ moods’, and what his father calls ‘ahh, time for me to be getting to work, I think’, (he’d gone so far as to measure himself in the Cave this morning, and had not grown a single millimetre; a Mood, he feels, is thoroughly warranted.) when he is… distracted. By something dark and out of place on Pennyworth’s hardwood floors.

He half-crouches to get a better look, and. It’s definitely blood. Not a lot of it, not by a long shot, just a little dribble, but that doesn’t mean it’s not something serious. 

Damian quickly straightens, ears listening out for any sounds out of place. He peers around the hallway and sees another few drops. His heart is hammering in his chest — he moves, quickly, to follow the trail to a half-open door, and —

“Pennyworth!” he shouts, down the hall, before remembering the man isn’t here. “Father!!” His voice sounds slightly too high, a little panicky to his own ears.

But the figure sitting on one end of the couch, shirt drenched in blood, head lolling backwards and not moving at all, sits up a little and says, “What the shit?”

“You are… not dead,” Damian says. Getting the obvious out of the way.

Jason Todd looks like he’s scowling (or, his eyebrows do at any rate. The lower half of his face is obscured by a wad of bloodied tissues). “Whad, you dever seed a bloody dose before?” He gropes blindly for the box by his hip, replacing the bloodied tissues with some clean ones. He tilts his head back again slowly. The tissues are already darkening with blood.

“Did someone hit you?” Damian asks interestedly, as Father skids down the hallway slightly out of breath. He stops in the doorway by Damian, looking ready for a fight, but takes in the situation with a brief narrowing of his eyes.

“ _Do_ , dobody hid me,” says Todd, eyes rolling, at the same time as Damian tells Father, “I didn’t know he was here.” And, “He bled on the floor,” and points to the offending trail.

“He’s family, Damian, he can bleed where he wants to,” says Father, and Todd snorts; Damian and Father both grimace at the effect this has on the tissues.

“Is this,” Damian starts, hesitant. Moving to stand in front of Todd (though well outside of the splash zone). “I don’t recall this happening to Grandfather.”

Todd shifts his head a little to meet Damian’s gaze; incredulous. “You think this is a side-effect of the _Pid_?” 

Damian frowns, opening his mouth to retort—

“You okay?” Father asks Todd, moving to sit by him. Offering him the box of tissues again.

“Yeah, I’b fide,” Jason grumbles. “I really liked this shird though.”

“Mm, well, you’re in luck,” says Father wryly. “I think Alfred has a little experience in removing bloodstains. You’re not — don’t tip your head back that far.”

Todd’s hand, the one not holding the tissues to his streaming nose, fumbles around. Bruce tries to offer him more tissues, but Todd makes it clear that he is only looking to make a rude gesture. 

Father sighs.

“Why is your nose bleeding,” Damian demands, barely resisting the urge to stomp his foot. No one has answered him yet, and now they’re practically _ignoring_ him.

Todd checks the tissues interestedly; the nosebleed seems to be slowing now. “It happens to some people when the air’s dry,” he explains, voice clearer now. “Happened to me a lot in winters as a kid.”

Damian considers this for a moment. “That sounds nightmarish,” he says. And, “It makes me glad to know that _I_ am genetically flawless.”

Todd tries half-heartedly to smack Damian, eyes rolling, but Father catches his arm before he can connect. “Don’t hit your brother,” he says, automatically. Absently.

“ _Adopted_ ,” they both say, simultaneously.

Father links his fingers together in his lap, peers interestedly at the ceiling for a moment. “Yes,” he says, finally. “You are clearly very different.”

Damian clicks his tongue, deeply insulted. Todd just elbows Father in the side, hard enough to make him grunt. Father gives a little sound then, a small exhale, but it sounds like a laugh.

“So what’s up, Jay? I didn’t know you’d be stopping by,” says Father. His fondness for Todd is obvious, though _why_ Damian can only imagine.

“Yeah, Alfred’s gonna be back later than he thought,” Todd explains. “He asked me to come by and make dinner for you two.” 

Father’s expression goes a little… _gooey_ at that, and Damian feels his nose wrinkle automatically.

“And no one can say no to Alfred, so it’s not, y’know, like. A thing,” says Todd, still daubing at his nostrils a little. The bleeding has mostly stopped, but his face and shirt still make him look like he’s straight out of a horror movie.

“Why didn’t Alfred call me?” Father wonders aloud. 

Todd hits him again, a little less hard this time, and says, “Well, he told me he called the house like, 6 times, but neither one of you answered.”

Damian and Father glance at one another. Damian seems to recall the phone ringing for an inordinately long time earlier.

“I guess,” Father says slowly. “I had kind of… expected Alfred to get it.”

“Yeah,” says Todd. “And that’s why you aren’t allowed near any kitchen appliances, B.” He motions for Father’s hand; then Todd gathers up his bloodied tissues into a giant wad, and hands it to Father.

Damian shudders, while Father, deadpan, says, “Thanks, kiddo.”

“You got it, old man,” Todd winks, standing up from the sofa and heading for the hall. “I’m gonna go check on the food situation. Hey, brat, you hungry? What do you feel like?”

Todd is… perhaps not the worst person he knows, Damian thinks, trailing automatically behind Todd. Now that he’s not leaking everywhere. Even if he is _disgusting_. 

**END.**

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet is also on [tumblr](http://incogneat-oh.tumblr.com/post/177167619743/theres-a-ficlet-under-the-cut-will-probably-post). Shoutout to canaryfeather on tumblr for the title suggestion!


End file.
